Stephen Hayes

Stephen Hayes Statement

What I make is in the service of an earnest, sincere, deep sense of awe and a search for the origins of that feeling. That search began as a kid with a silver crayon in 1962, drawing pictures of astronaut John Glenn and his rocket, and continues as a man amazed at the potent beauty of a single tree in a field.

The work I have made over the last 30 years has taken many forms. I have often painted outdoors in the face of nature, attempting to channel something of that awesomeness. I have sequestered myself in the studio and invented forms representative of the “nature of man”. I have scrutinized the appearance of people, myself included, and painted their portraits very directly from life. I have made portraits and other images from a more conceptual perspective; re-presenting unseen and unknown places and people.

I am consistently reminded by this work that we do not need to seek meaning or beauty or solace, or even adventure, very far from ourselves, and that our singular experiences reveal universal truths. I try to steer clear of the pitfalls inherent in mere mimicry; instead I seek to elicit the fundamental and visceral recognition of truths inherent in really looking to see, and in the land and its innate emotional and spiritual power.